“I have seen your relevant report and also noted that your report said you have asked China’s cyberspace administration authority. What’s more, your report has cited the response from the relevant authority in details, so I believe you are quite clear about this question.”

ABC joins a growing list of blocked news sites

The ABC is just the latest foreign media organisation to be blocked by Chinese authorities.

Earlier last month the BBC was blocked after changing its security web link from HTTP to HTTPS.

The BBC said the decision gave additional privacy to users, and made it far more difficult for internet service providers to track or block individual news stories.

Dr Smith suggested the bans on the BBC and the ABC may have been intended as a “signal to the host government”.

“There is a misguided perception that the state media outlet is connected to the government,” he said.

“The BBC is perceived in the same way, and the ABC is assumed to be in some way close to the Australian state and the Australian Government.”

China’s Great Firewall has also blocked the Guardian, Bloomberg and the New York Times, who have all published controversial stories about the wealth of President Xi Jinping and the country’s political elite.

Newswire service Reuters is also blocked, however unlike many of its foreign media predecessors, it was not blocked after any particular discriminating stories about the Government.

Intention of ban difficult to pinpoint

The decision to ban the ABC comes after the Australian Government’s decision to exclude two Chinese companies from being a part of the 5G mobile network — the biggest affected being the tech giant Huawei.

The letter N was also briefly blocked, to silence criticism of Mr Xi’s bid to be able to be president for life.

While it is not entirely clear why, experts say it’s likely that the government feared that the letter referred to the number of terms in office — where N is a mathematical term for which the value is still unknown.

The words “lifelong”, “immortality” and “disagree” were also blocked at the same time.